craznar writes: I am a professional software developer, currently writing some 'high-tech' point of sale software with some pretty unique features in it. The company I work for is a start up and doesn't have much in the way of financial resources.

Almost all of the code is my design, the over all structure is my design — but it uses a stack of novel approaches to problems that I worked out with customers over a period of a year or more.

This brings me to my primary concern — how many patents am I unknowingly breaking, how on earth can I possibly find out, and fundamentally is it at all possible to actually write software free of patent infringement any more.

For the moment, ignore the patent infringements in your purchased (and or open source) development libraries and development tools and focus the question just on the parts I have developed and written myself ?

It is looking like it about to take off, a significant amount of interest is starting to build.

However, a crap load of money means different things to different people. If the software takes in $100 million over the next few years (which is possible) that is a crapload of money to me - but probably chicken feed to many others.

"how many patents am I unknowingly breaking"imposable to know .--------"how on earth can I possibly find out"you can not , there is no Chrystal ball ,that is a 100% unknown factor-------"and fundamentally is it at all possible to actually write software free of patent infringement any more."

it is NOT a possibility when someone can sue over "infringing" on the "x" for closing a windowor that your corners are too round

IANAL, but in the US if you know about a patent and infringe upon it then that's considered "willful" infringement and they can triple the damages against you. Therefore many people in your position don't look at any patents whatsoever so they can plead innocence if a patent infringement occurs and minimize any potiential settlement. If you start looking for and reading over patents to try and cover your ass, you may end up digging a deeper hole later on.
Given the huge number and scope of some patents, ev